“But how’s that?! Cheese and chocolate?! ” I heard from a friend when I showed her occasional photo on my Instagram (follow) The surprise is probably due to the fact that Chocolate is associated with sweetness. We like to think about cheeses rather in terms of “salty”. In the end we all heard about wine + cheese combo. For more adventurous readers I also recommend my guide- soon to come – how to pair chocolate with wine (stay tuned folks!) So what about cheese? The first time I heard about cheese and chocolate pairing while I was on holiday in Colombia. It turns out that cheese dipped in hot chocolate is a traditional delicacy served in many cafés in Bogota. Hearing about this delicacy (?) for the first time I winced in a slight expectation of the worst. It turned out, however, that the cheese served in hot chocolate is a soft cheese, in the taste resembling a bit ricotta (maybe a little more blunt than ricotta and -yes! that’s possible). As a result, the shock for the taste buds was a bit smaller. But really speaking of serving yourself a surprise, it turns out all the fun is to hack the sense of taste and strike with salty and sweet. Simultaneously. Sounds silly? And Salted caramel, anyone? Camembert and cranberries? These are the classics of this type of matching Okay. Enough of it. Let’s get down to business and pair something. and by that, I mean – of course – Cheese and chocolate pairing 101. In this post I am not going to go into into the depths of the art of pairing. This time just the basics – what...

Rosemary pralines. This experimento is so unusual, that I do not even know how to write proper intro to this kitchen adventure. A few days ago I asked my Instagram audience in a poll, if it was a good idea to go and try this in my own kitchen. 100% voted “let’s do this! You go girl!. So I went! Believe you me, purchasing fresh rosemary at the beggining of December it ain’t all that easy. So after visiting several supermarkets, I can call my mission a success, and so Ladies and Gentlemen- fresh rosemary pralines Let me repeat myself – it was a big culinary experiment. I searched through the web and found no reasonable recipe to replicate. And so I had to make my own! The closest to an inspiration I got was this recipe here, but in the end the only common ingredient proved to be rosemary itself! At first I was a bit sceptical, after all I was experimenting with a really unusual ingredient. But my instincts proved me right! I have just finished preparing rosemary pralines and they blew me away! Sweet and sauer orange perfectly compliements bitterish rosemary. It’s a match made in heaven. But what am I going to explain to you, go and try yourselves! So let me share with you my recent discovery. Ingredients for 10 pralines : 50 grams of milk chocolate 50 grams of dark chocolate 50 grams of mascarpone zest of half orange chocolate sprinkle or cocoa powder for decoration Preparation : Melt both kinds of chocolate in water bath Stir in mascarpone Add rosemary and...

I am not a very big fan of complicated dishes. Nor vodka to be precise. And when it comes to preparing complicatged dishes with vodka…man I’m out! That’s why I started studying liqueurs. Well actually recipes for liqueurs. Homemade liqueurs are fun and easy and spirit based, rather than vodka! Classic win-win situation. So to start off smoothly I bring you chocolate liqueur – the easy recipe. To be honest, it was quite a mental challenge for me to go to the liquor store and purchase 96% spirit (more on my mental issues regarding the subject can be found here). But once I bought that half a litre bottle, suddenly my head got full of culinary ideas. I started releasing my creativity in a very old school manner – I went through all of my cookbooks to find the perfect recipe for chocolate liqueur. And guess what? I found nothing suitable. I tried preparing this liqueur several times before calling it a success. Why was that? Well, I followed the recipe which contained condensed milk and found the liqueur impossible to remove from the bottle! I had to break the thing with a hammer! Totally worth it act of violence! So, hbut aving learnt from that failure I enhanced the vintage recipe a bit. I confirm that after a week, it’s still in a drinkable state rather than edible. Ingrdients : 100 g milk chocolate 200 ml spirit Tin of condensed milk (aha!! still there!!) 300 ml or a cup of full milk Pinch of cinnamon (optional but since it’s my singature spice I add it everywhere. If you...

I am still sick! Yay hooray! And fever is giving me side effect of poetry (vide the title of this post). So instead of spreading viruses…I’m spreading chocolate! Or chocolate spread to be precise. Anywho, Netflix is still no fun and going outside is impossibile! So, the only way to cheer a gal like myself up is to do some fancy cooking (low cost though). I’ve been into spreads for a while now, because they are easy and quick to make and when done with love (ha!) can be part of a fancy table decor. Or a great gift. Non- alcoholic this time. The best part about it this babe is that it contains two main ingredients only. Hence it is very easy to prepare. Since we are slowly entering Christmas/ Holiday period I prefer to make a batch and then share the jars with friends. So again, without further ado let’s get straight to business. Ingredients: 100 g pistachios (if you’re feeling lazy use pistachio butter (it will save you roughly 1/2 hr of prepping) 200 g white chocolate (I used vegan but you can go for regular chocolate) pinch of salt 300 ml jar (Sherlock….) Preparation: peel pistachios grind the pistachios in a food processor or blender. Go for the texture you like the most, I prefer crunchy so I’m deliberately very clumsy about the grinding melt chocolate in water bath put away around 20g of chocolate add ground pistachios to 180 g of chocolate put it in a jar and let it cool down store away for up to a month For those of you...

So it happened! I caught cold. I thought I’d been taking good care of myself but yeah….no…So I’m stuck at home miserable, sick and desperate. Suddenly Netflix is not so much fun anymore and I’ve been banned from exercising for a while. So what can I do? Well, chocolate obviously…duh I’ve been playing with various chocolate speard formulas for a while now, but this time I decided to make an upgrade. The below recipe is a true masterpiece of fusion cuisine so brace yourselves! Chocolate -mascarpone spread – upgraded version Why upgraded? Well, I don’t fool around these days. And there’s something sexy about cooking with spirits. It makes one….spiritual I guess? Having said that I’d gone to my local store to purchase some spirit. Pretty heavy metal thing. Like I said…I don’t fool around these days in the kitchen. Most of the spirit has been used for lovely chocolate liquor (I will share the recipe soon). The remainings however have been used a base for this fab spread. So without further ado : Ingredients : Good, solid spoonful of spirit (96% alcohol in case you were planning on ghost hunting). Manipulate the dose until you find your sweet spot. The final product should be tangy* 200 g mascarpone cheese Caster sugar to taste 200 g dark chocolate Jar or any other container – wait is that an ingredient? Preparation : This is an easy part, I promise you that! Melt chocolate in water bath Add caster sugar while stirring Carefully stir in mascapone Add spirit Stir until smooth texture Store in a fridge for up to two weeks...